Is Fashion with a capital F back at long last? After season after season of uninspiring simplicity, quiet luxury reigns no more at Milan Fashion Week. Making a strong case for personal style, individuality reigned supreme and the most daring designers threw everything at the wall – including UFO-shaped hats and bunny-eared fuzzy heels – to see what would stick.
At Prada, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons plugged into the algorithm, while Marni’s creative director Francesco Risso took us on a trip down the off-kilter rabbit hole. Meanwhile, Bottega Veneta’s Matthieu Blazy created a safe space to heal his inner child and Beatte Karlsson created a sportswear collection for people who hate sports (thank you!).
Below are i-D’s highlights of MFW SS25.
1. Through the Looking Glass
Kicking off Milan’s whimsical jaunt, Marni’s creative director Francesco Risso took on the role of Mad Hatter this season. Entering a labyrinth of chairs scattered among grand pianos, attendees were greeted with a poem, their amuse-bouche for the impending trip down the rabbit hole. “Beauty is a white rabbit scampering across your yard. You chase it. Though you fall short in capturing it, in the mad rush you find yourself somewhere wondrous,” it read. Wandering the maze of seats, the models sporadically changed direction in an instant, charting their own paths through the chaos. In Marni’s version of Wonderland, the 20s crashed with the 50s – pencil-thin brows became more arched and villainous as the show progressed while mermaid tail dresses were printed with roses of various sizes. And there were hats: sailors’ dixie cups and tricorns appeared to grow and shrink at will, the former dwarfing the models’ heads. As the acid trip continued, the aforementioned roses were rhinestoned or appeared in sour pinks and yellows; while ballgown skirts and oversized boas were crafted from ‘feathers’ that were actually meticulously cut scraps of cotton. “This is the romance of Marni: the ephemeral, lingering desire to go chasing rabbits,” Risso concluded. We’re ready to go on another trip.
2. Plug Into Your FYP
Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons made doomscrolling look good this season. “Today is a period of endless information, driven by algorithms where each person sees their own version of the present, their own reality curated for them,” Miuccia said in Prada’s show notes. “We wanted not to critique but engage with this idea, to open a dialogue inspired by a cultural moment.” A heady clash of references, materials and colours, Infinite Present bounced from hole-punched space age tinfoil skirts to plumed sets paired with windbreakers in an instant, while leather dresses were decorated with door knockers and trompe l’oeil belts were smushed into skirts and trousers. A love letter to individuality, the collection was accompanied by custom footwear – a different pair for all 49 models – that referenced familiar silhouettes from past collections; elsewhere, eccentric eyewear with buglike lenses popped up on polka dot scarves, or holey hats and visors. “We thought of each individual as a superhero – with their own power, their own story. That reflects an idea of transformation – through your practice, your actions, or through the clothes you wear,” offered Raf as an explanation for the show’s smorgasbord. “They’re all means to express a message: about your own authority, your own personal strength.” What, no capes?
3. Heal Your Inner Child
Childhood was on Matthieu Blazy’s mind this season, inspired by an unlikely source: Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Transforming the show space into a chic crèche filled with leather animal-shaped bean bags – inspired by the Sacco by Zanotta chair originally designed in 1968 – guests including Michelle Yeoh, very demure TikTok star Jools Lebron and the house’s ambassador Jacob Elordi tried to figure out whether they’d been intentionally paired with the variety of rooster, rabbit, otter and snake-shaped seats. As the collection emerged from the wings, the playtime continued with one-legged trousers poking from under skirts, plus roomy tailoring engulfing models like children who have pilfered their parent’s wardrobe. Blink and you’d miss the details: it took a much closer inspection to reveal Blazy’s frog brooches perched on collars and bag fastenings that doubled as cute bunnies. Which is all to say: can we have five more minutes to play, please?
4. Let Loose
Now two years into his role as creative director at Ferragamo, Maximilian Davis loosened up a little this season. Exploring the house’s relationship with ballet – queer dancer Rudolf Nureyev and African-American choreographer Katherine Dunham both wore custom shoes designed by Salvatore Ferragamo in their time – this season’s Ferragamo woman was no stiff prima ballerina. Instead, crumpled trenches, safari jackets and dresses were thrown on in a hurry before rushing out the door. Leotards and dance studio basics appeared alongside pointe shoes that were transfigured into flats and thonged heels, complete with criss-cross ribbons snaking up the legs. Elsewhere, hints of Davis’s Trinidadian-Jamaican heritage were integrated via colour blocking – rich reds, dusty pinks and royal blues – distressed denim edges and sculptural organic shapes that curved around necklines and hems. But it was the latter part of the collection that saw Davis’ real grand jeté. Asymmetric dresses, an amalgamation of concentric lines that came undone at the hem into a scribble of bouncing threads, were quickly followed by a pair of coats for him and her – constructed from a lattice of laser-cut leather circles.
5. Making Fun of Fashion
At last season’s medieval affair, attendees of Beate Karlsson’s Avavav show were handed buckets of trash and encouraged to lob it at the models as they walked the runway. This time around, the Swedish designer headed to the track, taking over Milan’s Forza e Coraggio sports arena for the world’s laziest sports day. Immediately exhausted and giving up, Avavav’s models sighed loudly, dragged their heels, and generally couldn’t be arsed to make it to the finish line, all the while hobbling along in the brand’s signature frog-toed shoes; others fared worse, wrapped in bandage-like dresses splashed with blood. The collection itself featured more straightforward sportswear, created in collaboration with adidas Originals – cropped jackets, streamlined hooded zip-ups, puffers and polos – all of which were featured alongside tongue-in-cheek dupes that were painted onto the models and fake abs glued onto hoodies. The sportswear giant’s signature three stripes appeared too, elongated and dripping over the edge of caps while shoes were Frankensteined together into handbags. “From the beginning of our partnership, I was encouraged to ‘make fun’ of adidas,” Karlsson explained of the collaboration. “There’s so much irony in how seriously we take both sports and fashion, and exploring that while maintaining a serious attitude has been incredibly fun.”
Text: Dominic Cadogan
Photography: Darrel Hunter